The Charlie Kirk Show - 2026: The Aftermath

00:00:03.000 My name is Charlie Kirk.

00:00:05.000 I run the largest pro American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic.

00:00:11.000 My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth.

00:00:14.000 If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable.

00:00:19.000 But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful.

00:00:24.000 College is a scam, everybody.

00:00:26.000 You got to stop sending your kids to college.

00:00:27.000 You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible.

00:00:31.000 Go start a Turning Point USA College chapter.

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00:00:35.000 Go find out how your church can get involved.

00:00:37.000 Sign up and become an activist.

00:00:39.000 I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade.

00:00:41.000 Most important decision I ever made in my life.

00:00:43.000 And I encourage you to do the same.

00:00:45.000 Here I am.

00:00:46.000 Lord, use me.

00:00:48.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:49.000 Here we go.

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00:01:17.000 All right.

00:01:18.000 Welcome, everybody.

00:01:19.000 It is the morning after a very, very tough election night.

00:01:24.000 And that is the truth.

00:01:26.000 We're going to be honest with you today because we were honest with you last night.

00:01:31.000 And guess what?

00:01:33.000 That was a tough night.

00:01:34.000 That was a brutal beating.

00:01:37.000 The likes of which we probably haven't seen since Watergate.

00:01:40.000 I mean, you could go back to 2006, 2008.

00:01:43.000 For Republicans, yeah.

00:01:44.000 Yeah.

00:01:45.000 So that, but listen, a night of historic proportions.

00:01:50.000 And the question is why?

00:01:52.000 What happened?

00:01:54.000 Well, there are a few different answers to that question.

00:01:59.000 But I want to remind you right now that God is still on the throne, he's still in control, that this is still America, as long as we can keep her.

00:02:10.000 And we got to get to work.

00:02:12.000 You know, Charlie used to always say, We don't fight because we know we're going to win.

00:02:16.000 He stole that from Dennis Prager.

00:02:18.000 We fight because it's the right thing to do.

00:02:20.000 And I'm reminded of a clip that Erica shared on social media where Charlie, she's videoing him before the 2024 election, said, What happens if we lose?

00:02:29.000 And he said, Well, we wake up the next day and we fight and we fight.

00:02:32.000 So that's what we have to do today.

00:02:34.000 That is our task.

00:02:35.000 That is our purpose.

00:02:36.000 And it's also to be really honest about what happened and why.

00:02:41.000 And the vice president has put out a tweet this morning.

00:02:46.000 That basically is saying we know why we didn't win.

00:02:52.000 Everybody knows why we didn't win.

00:02:54.000 There's one real answer for why we didn't win.

00:02:58.000 And the question is are we willing to be honest about it?

00:03:01.000 There are other reasons, sure.

00:03:03.000 There's a collection of reasons, but the one real reason has to do with the war.

00:03:09.000 All the exit polls confirm it.

00:03:11.000 The perception within the voting electorate of what that did to the economy, what that did to affordability, what that did to gas prices.

00:03:19.000 And you could Be out there in the audience and you could disagree with that.

00:03:22.000 You could say it's something that we needed to do.

00:03:24.000 We needed to deal with the Iran problem.

00:03:26.000 It had been lingering for 40 plus years and that there's only been 20 casualties, which is 20 too many, but yeah, it's not Vietnam.

00:03:36.000 But perception so often is reality.

00:03:39.000 And a point that we made on this show when the war started was that we did not feel that it had been properly sold to the American people.

00:03:48.000 And I would say that the voters spoke loudly last night and said, Yeah, it didn't get sold to us the right way.

00:03:54.000 And then we wanted peace.

00:03:56.000 There was an off ramp.

00:03:57.000 A lot within our coalition fought that.

00:03:59.000 They wanted to see Iran dealt with once and for all.

00:04:02.000 What the voters said last night is, we want you to focus on domestic policy.

00:04:07.000 Yeah, we should.

00:04:08.000 I mean, we have to, first of all, we have to be honest about just kind of the scale of what happened right now.

00:04:13.000 So, first of all, look at the Senate.

00:04:17.000 We have defeats in Senate races that we were not even particularly closely watching going into last night.

00:04:24.000 South Carolina, Darlene Graham lost.

00:04:27.000 She lost by, right now, it's lost by four points, not even a razor thin margin, but a really shocking one right now.

00:04:34.000 In Mississippi, Scott Colem is up by about a thousand votes over Cindy Hyde Smith.

00:04:41.000 Almost all of the vote in.

00:04:42.000 Nobody was looking at that one.

00:04:44.000 And I mean, even last night, it looked like they were fine to hold it.

00:04:48.000 And then some late arriving ballots.

00:04:49.000 And I know that'll make some people cry foul.

00:04:52.000 I will just say, Mississippi is Republican at every level of the government.

00:04:56.000 And so it's probably not that.

00:04:59.000 It is probably a real reflection of we got beaten badly.

00:05:03.000 Tallarico versus Paxton in Texas.

00:05:06.000 We did not just lose.

00:05:07.000 James Tallarico won by 12 points.

00:05:09.000 The governor of Texas is Democrat.

00:05:11.000 The railroad commissioner is going to be a Democrat.

00:05:14.000 It looks like the legislature is going to be Democrat.

00:05:16.000 It is now a blue trifecta.

00:05:19.000 Yeah.

00:05:20.000 And we have the same thing in Arizona.

00:05:22.000 You know, we chased over 100,000 ballots in Arizona.

00:05:26.000 And it wasn't nearly enough, obviously.

00:05:32.000 In a wave year where the Democrat, where the electorate goes D plus 16, The question then becomes, what are you going to do about it?

00:05:43.000 And the lone bright spot was Florida.

00:05:46.000 And that state has 1.3 million more Republicans than Democrats, and they barely held on.

00:05:51.000 Now, there's one race that remains too close to call, two, technically, if you can count Mississippi.

00:05:57.000 But we are still watching Alaska, which is now separated by 624 votes.

00:06:05.000 624 votes.

00:06:07.000 Mary Peltola, the Democrat who schemed to get a fake Dan Sullivan on the ballot.

00:06:13.000 Is up.

00:06:15.000 And interestingly enough, Dan J. Sullivan Jr., the other Dan Sullivan, the decoy Dan, has 3,500 votes.

00:06:23.000 So that's the margin and then some in that state.

00:06:26.000 So we'll see how that ends up playing out.

00:06:28.000 There's the latest updates there.

00:06:31.000 So the reason why.

00:06:34.000 Now, the vice president put out a tweet this morning explaining that, yeah, he ends it in a very, I think, poignant way.

00:06:46.000 He said, I remain hopeful about our country.

00:06:48.000 To the people who are pissed off and want to say I told you so, you were right.

00:06:53.000 You did tell us so.

00:06:55.000 Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview.

00:06:59.000 To the people who are just pissed at the result, you should be.

00:07:01.000 Let's take that anger and get back to work saving our country.

00:07:04.000 But in the middle of this long tweet, he says he's speaking to a pollster, one of the smartest people he knows in politics, and told him yesterday that we'd lose the generic ballot by 13 points.

00:07:16.000 It ended up being even more than that in many places.

00:07:19.000 He said, I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this.

00:07:24.000 In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats.

00:07:30.000 He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team.

00:07:37.000 Here's the top four answers that this pollster received one, end the war.

00:07:44.000 Two, focus on the cost of living and inflation.

00:07:47.000 Put America first.

00:07:49.000 Four, change our relationship to Israel.

00:07:52.000 Those were the four answers.

00:07:57.000 And, you know, I put out a social media post this morning.

00:08:01.000 It said it's time to end the Iran war.

00:08:02.000 And I say that knowing that a lot of you in this audience disagree with that, that you believed in what the president was doing in Iran.

00:08:13.000 And listen, I think that there are really good rationalizations and justifications for going into Iran no nukes, they were going to try and blow up regional allies.

00:08:27.000 But at the end of the day, the voters have spoken.

00:08:31.000 We had an off ramp to peace with the MOU in the summer, and I loudly cheered for it.

00:08:38.000 And I took a lot of gruff, some from you in this audience.

00:08:44.000 But last night was why because we could see the political tea leaves long before election night.

00:08:51.000 You could basically track the data of the popularity of this administration.

00:08:57.000 Back to the Iran war, and you can see the lines diverge like this.

00:09:01.000 You could track it with the gas price, and then the knock on downstream effects of what that did to people's perception of the economy, to the perception of feeling betrayed by a president they thought was the No New Wars president.

00:09:17.000 There are other, yeah, there's the gas price tracking right along with it.

00:09:22.000 So we could talk about ballot chasing, and yeah, we chased over 100,000 ballots in the state.

00:09:28.000 We probably helped get elected a Republican governor in New Hampshire.

00:09:33.000 But in a wave election where you think Chasing can make up three, four, maybe five points, when the electorate is swinging wildly, D plus 13, D plus 15, they're saying something loud.

00:09:49.000 Focus on the cost of living and inflation.

00:09:49.000 End the war.

00:09:52.000 Put America first.

00:09:53.000 Change our relationship with Israel.

00:09:54.000 Those are the four top answers.

00:09:58.000 Now, there are a few bright spots, and Brandon Gill is one of them.

00:10:00.000 Blake.

00:10:01.000 Tell us about Brandon Gill.

00:10:02.000 Well, Brandon Gill, we're looking for wins where we can.

00:10:05.000 And so, for example, there's in Gill's district, it looks like it's a place that was voting for Tallarica over Paxton decisively.

00:10:14.000 By 11 points.

00:10:15.000 And by extension, that means voting for a Democrat governor.

00:10:15.000 By 11 points.

00:10:18.000 That's what we have there now.

00:10:20.000 Democrat, every state level office.

00:10:22.000 And then Brandon Gill still won by 10 points.

00:10:24.000 And we're happy with that because Brandon Gill is not just a Republican survivor, he's a Republican survivor who's Good on the issues and good at communicating.

00:10:32.000 We're going to need more Brandon Gills to turn the tide.

00:10:35.000 So we want to have winners like that around.

00:10:39.000 And there's other white pills.

00:10:40.000 And even within the scale of the disaster that we just experienced, I actually want to highlight one that might be surprising to a lot of people, which is that if you look at which groups shifted specific ways from 2020 to 2024 to 2026, it's very interesting.

00:11:02.000 Send up, it's the image from the intersection that I sent today, if you guys can find it.

00:11:06.000 So, for example, there's a lot of focus on how Hispanics swerved back towards Democrats.

00:11:11.000 And they did.

00:11:11.000 And that's a big reason Texas is blue.

00:11:13.000 That's a big reason we're losing a lot of these races.

00:11:15.000 But I will note, for example, Hispanic men from 2020 to 2024, the reason we won so big in 24, they moved our direction between those two elections 33 points.

00:11:26.000 And then from 24 to this election, they moved towards the Democrats by 24 points.

00:11:31.000 So, do the math.

00:11:32.000 That means actually, Hispanic men are nine points more Republican than they were in 2020.

00:11:37.000 Hispanics overall are seven points more Republican than they were in 2020.

00:11:41.000 We have made durable gains with that group that we can build upon if we revert back to the mean in 2028.

00:11:49.000 Who did we actually get hammered by?

00:11:50.000 We got hammered with young people.

00:11:51.000 I think that strongly supports that this was the war above all that really made people angry because they're really upset about it.

00:11:58.000 We got way worse with ordinary suburban voters.

00:12:00.000 We got worse with just regular white voters.

00:12:05.000 So that's where we bled support from 2020.

00:12:09.000 Those are places we can make it back.

00:12:11.000 So there's a lot of focus on demographics is destiny, and it does matter a lot.

00:12:15.000 But we actually are seeing durable gains where we need to have them to be able to contest elections in this country, even in states.

00:12:22.000 Like Texas, like Georgia.

00:12:24.000 And listen, I'm a big believer.

00:12:26.000 Yeah, the Latino men, that's a thing.

00:12:28.000 I think you need to focus on young men.

00:12:31.000 You need to focus on young men.

00:12:33.000 I will tell you that in 2024, the amount of enthusiasm that young men, young white men, young Hispanic men, but specifically young white men, and there's nothing wrong with saying it, the amount of enthusiasm that they had for the political movement and the coalition that we were building was through the roof.

00:12:49.000 They believed that things were going to be different.

00:12:53.000 And Whether you look at Epstein, which I believe was the first psychic break, the bungled handling of that, and then Midnight Hammer, and then obviously the full scale Iran invasion or war, it wasn't really an invasion.

00:13:07.000 I will be more precise.

00:13:10.000 Young men were frustrated.

00:13:12.000 Remember when I brought up the $20 burrito and how much flack I took?

00:13:17.000 I took it greatly because I knew I was right.

00:13:21.000 Not that every burrito cost $20, but that the price of normal things.

00:13:26.000 That people expect to be able to afford was too expensive, and that was accentuated by a war of choice, was a huge deal to the voters.

00:13:38.000 And we need to be honest about that.

00:13:39.000 You need to build a coalition where your young men are enthusiastic.

00:13:43.000 Because guess what happens when young men are enthusiastic?

00:13:47.000 A lot of the women will come along too, because they want to hang out with the guys.

00:13:51.000 The young guys will post memes, they'll post on social media, they'll tell their friends, they'll scream it loudly at the frat party.

00:14:01.000 So, when you are losing that link, yeah, maybe they don't show up in as great a number at midterms, but they'll show up in a general, which is what we have coming up next.

00:14:13.000 And they grow up and they vote a lot more as they get older.

00:14:20.000 So, it is a canary in the coal mine when you are losing young people.

00:14:24.000 That is why Charlie believed in what we were doing so much at Turning Point and why it was so important to the future of this country.

00:14:31.000 While privately talking to him, he knew that Epstein and Iran were huge issues.

00:14:38.000 And the first thing is just being honest.

00:14:42.000 Being honest about that.

00:14:44.000 So, one of the problems that you could have is learning the wrong lessons.

00:14:49.000 This is an interesting thing to look at.

00:14:49.000 Okay.

00:14:51.000 This is from N Wokeness on X 303, if you could throw it up.

00:14:57.000 Here's what's interesting the governor's race plus eight for the Dems.

00:15:01.000 Okay.

00:15:03.000 Amy Acton.

00:15:04.000 She's like the white Kamala.

00:15:06.000 Voter ID amendment plus 31 yes.

00:15:12.000 If we have that graphic, please throw it up 303.

00:15:15.000 North Carolina results Senate plus 20 Democrat.

00:15:19.000 Voter ID amendment plus 20 yes.

00:15:23.000 Nevada results governor plus 7 Democrat.

00:15:26.000 Voter ID amendment plus 25 yes.

00:15:30.000 So he adds even in a blue tsunami, voter ID was able to pass with landslide margins.

00:15:35.000 Big landslides for a lot of transgender laws.

00:15:39.000 So, uh, Mostly men out of women's sports.

00:15:41.000 That's passing in Washington, one of the bluest states in the country.

00:15:45.000 I believe there's another one passing at maybe North Carolina.

00:15:48.000 I can't remember where it was.

00:15:49.000 Nebraska had one pass.

00:15:51.000 Another big one that we should care about Idaho had an amendment to repeal their abortion ban.

00:15:57.000 That failed, so remains illegal there.

00:16:02.000 That's the second time we've won an up or down 50% vote.

00:16:04.000 So South Dakota did that in 24, but now we did it in Idaho in a bad year.

00:16:09.000 Of course, in Florida, we also survived where that was a 60% vote.

00:16:12.000 So it got majority, but it didn't clear that threshold.

00:16:14.000 So we've got wins there.

00:16:16.000 We have a few of those.

00:16:17.000 And that's important because what they'll say is the policies are unpopular.

00:16:23.000 No.

00:16:24.000 Some of the policies that we push hardest on, like the Save America Act, voter ID in federal elections, those are popular.

00:16:31.000 Those are winning in a blue tsunami year.

00:16:34.000 The other thing that is important to note the exit polls indicated that Republicans still scored favorably on immigration.

00:16:42.000 Now, there's a lot of, I think, questions being asked about did we pursue our immigration agenda in the right way?

00:16:50.000 The critics will say it was too shock and awe, it was too in your face, it was too much like.

00:16:54.000 Public raids on the streets, and we should have focused more on businesses.

00:16:59.000 My answer to that is yes to all of the above.

00:17:02.000 Why we didn't focus more on businesses is a giant, looming question, but we should now.

00:17:09.000 And if you do that, maybe you can avoid some of the optics that the Democrats feast on.

00:17:16.000 Here's another one.

00:17:16.000 This is from Echelon Insights 304.

00:17:19.000 In their own words, Trump voters who now disapprove, what were their biggest issues?

00:17:25.000 Economy and cost of living, foreign policy wars, including Iran.

00:17:30.000 Okay.

00:17:31.000 The economy and cost of living was by far and away the top.

00:17:34.000 I can't afford to live.

00:17:36.000 That is one of the quotes they have there.

00:17:38.000 And yeah, in 2024, I got the impression that he, being Trump, was going to support the country a lot more than he has been.

00:17:46.000 Now his actions have increased the cost of living.

00:17:49.000 Now, some of this, again, is perception over reality.

00:17:52.000 But when you have a war in Iran, every knock on effect, gas prices, is going to.

00:18:00.000 Impact the perception of the electorate even more.

00:18:03.000 The high inflation caused by the endless wars and how he campaigned for no more endless wars.

00:18:08.000 And I think this is a very powerful, and this is another quote.

00:18:11.000 The on again, off again situation with tariffs is causing unnecessary problems.

00:18:16.000 That's the thing with tariffs.

00:18:18.000 It's hard to critique that too hard because, in contrast with the war, something we didn't run on, nobody really expected, and they feel really betrayed.

00:18:25.000 If tariffs are tough, that's a harder one because Trump 100% campaigned on doing tariffs.

00:18:30.000 It is His signature issue that he's passionate about.

00:18:33.000 But I think that highlights an important aspect of it, which is that they were rolled out and announced very abruptly.

00:18:40.000 He did those Liberation Day tariffs.

00:18:42.000 There was a lot of, he's announcing new, really aggressive tariffs on X that are taking effect next week.

00:18:48.000 And then they would suddenly get turned off after something.

00:18:50.000 And then he would say they're coming back.

00:18:52.000 And if you were an actual small business owner, someone who's reliant on imports from China for certain inputs in your business, That made things really uncertain.

00:19:03.000 It made things very difficult.

00:19:04.000 I think a lot of ordinary business owners, that was just a really stressful thing.

00:19:08.000 And if you're not in that world, it's difficult to see that, but it mattered a lot for those people.

00:19:14.000 And I think that's an important thing when we talk about the economy and cost of living.

00:19:19.000 It's not just that the war made it worse.

00:19:22.000 I do think there was an aspect where the way this administration presented its policies to the world made it worse.

00:19:29.000 People have brought up the ballroom.

00:19:31.000 We like the ballroom, we like the idea of the ballroom, but it was also clearly.

00:19:35.000 A gigantic passion project of the administration that was going on for months and months.

00:19:41.000 And that's probably not the best look if other people are really concerned about inflation and their sense is this is a top priority for the administration ahead of fixing that.

00:19:50.000 And that might not even be true, but it is a perception some voters had.

00:19:56.000 I think that the most common text I got from people, and again, I'm not necessarily pointing my finger at any one person, but the most common text I got from people was that they felt like the president had been tone deaf on things like that.

00:20:10.000 Now, I believe that the president was putting up huge wins.

00:20:12.000 We did hold shows on the wins that the president was putting up.

00:20:15.000 That's the administration was putting up.

00:20:17.000 But if it's coming down to shows like this to make that point, that's a problem.

00:20:22.000 And I can't tell you how many people were frustrated about the renaming things and things like that.

00:20:27.000 And by the way, all of these things are totally fine if the economy is ripping off, if inflation, if gas prices are down.

00:20:34.000 And another one, as an example so there were 43 or so, 43 or 44 data center related measures on the ballot.

00:20:42.000 And I think they went 43 to 1.

00:20:44.000 Harwood, North Dakota.

00:20:45.000 A town of about 400 people, they voted in favor of data centers outside Fargo.

00:20:49.000 So, from Fargo to the future, every data center's got to be built there.

00:20:52.000 Well, and that affects places like Greg Abbott.

00:20:55.000 In Texas.

00:20:55.000 It does.

00:20:56.000 So, and yeah, voters who said AI was a big part of their vote, which wasn't as important as the economy or the war, but they did exist.

00:21:03.000 They were tilting left.

00:21:04.000 And as an example, Trump spent a lot of this past fall really pushing, oh, we're going to call it super intelligence now.

00:21:11.000 If you call it AI, you're not with us.

00:21:14.000 Like, that was clearly his point of emphasis.

00:21:17.000 And you mentioned tone deafness.

00:21:19.000 I think people who are worried that AI or SI or whatever is going to take their job, that is not going to satisfy them that things are fine.

00:21:28.000 What if instead it was he was getting promises from Anthropic is about to do an IPO?

00:21:34.000 What if he did an announcement with Dario Amadi where Dario says, We're going to be putting a share of the new Anthropic IPO in every single Trump account?

00:21:42.000 Something like that where you really make the pitch.

00:21:44.000 I know you're all worried about AI, but everyone is going to have a stake in it succeeding.

00:21:49.000 So it's not going to replace you.

00:21:50.000 It's going to enrich you.

00:21:52.000 And that's a long term strategy.

00:21:54.000 But I think if you had a lot of that and that's what the administration was leading with all the time, it would have satisfied a lot of people more.

00:22:00.000 Another issue, and I think about this with the young men turning on us.

00:22:03.000 People are debating did a perception of corruption in the administration play a role?

00:22:08.000 I think it did.

00:22:09.000 We know young men love betting on sports, they love going on those prediction markets, they like cryptocurrency.

00:22:16.000 What's some of the stuff we've had in the last few years?

00:22:18.000 We've had a Trump coin, we've had these crypto pump and dump type.

00:22:22.000 Adventures with cryptocurrency.

00:22:24.000 Alleged.

00:22:25.000 We've had, you know, allegations of insider trading on prediction markets that people were making money by saying we're going to bomb Iran or go into Venezuela.

00:22:34.000 Like someone in the administration was able to profit off of that.

00:22:37.000 And you know who would instantly know about that?

00:22:39.000 Young men who actually like playing the field.

00:22:42.000 They were very keen on all of those rumors and allegations.

00:22:45.000 And again, perception becomes reality.

00:22:49.000 And you've got to address those things head on.

00:22:52.000 And by the way, you know who's talking about that today and yesterday is Ron DeSantis out of Florida.

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00:24:35.000 Joining us now is Will Chamberlain, Article 3 Project.

00:24:40.000 Will, that was obviously a big shout out.

00:24:45.000 Excuse me.

00:24:46.000 And we need to be honest about the lessons that we learn from this.

00:24:46.000 Excuse me.

00:24:50.000 And I invited you on the show today because I thought you were sort of leading the charge or one of the voices leading the charge of being willing to be honest and humble about some of the things that you got wrong, even.

00:25:02.000 So, yeah, for sure.

00:25:04.000 The morning after, what are some things that you learned from what happened last night?

00:25:10.000 Okay, so the first and most important is that the Iran war is not just unpopular, it's catastrophically unpopular.

00:25:17.000 And that has a whole series of implications about how Republicans need to handle it going forward.

00:25:24.000 That means originally the idea to go into war was a mistake.

00:25:28.000 And it's a mistake regardless of whether or not you think the substantive benefits are good.

00:25:34.000 If you think it is good to have deprived Iran of its ballistics, which I do, if you think it's good to have really put a lot of pain on the Iranian regime, to have destroyed their military capabilities, I think that's all great.

00:25:46.000 But you still have to think about, you know, There's a reason when you're in a plane, you have to put on your own face mask, your own mask first before you help anybody else.

00:25:55.000 If we lose the country over it, then on net, it's bad.

00:25:59.000 And moreover, all the sort of medium to long term plans of how we would end up bringing the war to a successful conclusion, if the war is catastrophically unpopular, then political will is a resource in foreign policy as much as any munition.

00:26:15.000 So if you don't have the political will for your plan, then it means that your plan is bad and it won't work.

00:26:22.000 And so That also implicates what we need to do going forward.

00:26:26.000 It means we need to bring the war to an end immediately.

00:26:29.000 The people have spoken.

00:26:30.000 They want the war over.

00:26:32.000 That much is obvious.

00:26:33.000 And so we need to end it.

00:26:34.000 And that's true, even if we think that the geopolitical consequences of ending it will be bad, which I do.

00:26:39.000 I don't think the geopolitical consequences will be good for the United States.

00:26:42.000 I think we're going to have to deal with some problems as a result of having to pull out in a sort of hasty manner.

00:26:46.000 I think it's going to have knock on effects that we don't like.

00:26:49.000 But that doesn't matter because the consequences of Democrats having full control of the government in 2028, if they win the White House, are extraordinary.

00:26:56.000 And worse than the potential knock on effects geopolitically that we're going to have to deal with from a pullout.

00:27:00.000 So, the answer is the war needs to end in short order.

00:27:04.000 And then, even if that means, you know, I mean, I think probably it looks like, honestly, something like the Joe Kent plan, which, as he described it to me in our debates, was along the lines of we remove the naval blockade, we maintain the sanctions, and try and make a deal with Iran to remove the remaining sanctions.

00:27:18.000 But that's sort of what I think needs to happen.

00:27:21.000 I think people, I also think that it's a lesson.

00:27:24.000 I don't think anybody gets to protect their hobby horse in terms politically.

00:27:27.000 Like the idea that somehow tariffs aren't also a problem here.

00:27:29.000 Like, you can look at the numbers, our tariffs did not help.

00:27:32.000 Cost of living was a huge problem.

00:27:34.000 So, I think the administration needs to, everybody kind of needs to get on board with the idea we have to win the White House in 28.

00:27:39.000 Like the true disaster could result from unified Democrat government.

00:27:45.000 And we need to be pulling every lever to do what is necessary to show that we've heard what the voters have said and change our policy.

00:27:53.000 Yeah.

00:27:53.000 And I think it's important to emphasize that point that why it's important to win in 28, especially, is because Democrats, the census, but also just because Democrats got a lot of Senate upsets, they now will have a majority that can push through.

00:28:06.000 Pretty radical stuff.

00:28:07.000 It will be very hard for us to retake the Senate until 2032.

00:28:12.000 2030, 2032.

00:28:13.000 Yeah.

00:28:13.000 In 2032, we'll have a great election cycle because there's going to be, there might be a Democrat in Mississippi who's up, and they're probably not going to do great.

00:28:20.000 It's going to be a very winnable race.

00:28:21.000 Yeah.

00:28:22.000 So this, I mean, what you said, though, is, I think, really profound, Will.

00:28:27.000 You said that means was getting into this war a mistake?

00:28:32.000 The answer is yes.

00:28:33.000 By definition.

00:28:33.000 Even if that has negative geopolitical ramifications.

00:28:38.000 And I heard Matt Walsh say it last night.

00:28:40.000 He said, I'd rather Iran have a nuke than to let commies run America.

00:28:45.000 Now, there's people in this audience that are going to find that crazy.

00:28:49.000 And I understand it.

00:28:51.000 But what I think we can look back and say, you know, the Midnight Hammer strikes were one thing.

00:28:56.000 That was a precision strike.

00:28:58.000 We got in, got out.

00:29:00.000 And if we had to do it again, I think there would have been less pushback, less blowback of another precision strike.

00:29:07.000 But what we ended up doing.

00:29:09.000 The ramifications politically are disastrous, and there needs to be a real come to Jesus moment and be willing to be honest about that.

00:29:17.000 Because, guess what?

00:29:18.000 You know, we might not control the Senate till 2032.

00:29:21.000 At that point, I believe, what is it?

00:29:26.000 Scalia, I keep saying Scalia, Alito is going to be 82, and Clarence Thomas is going to be 84.

00:29:33.000 So, either, you know, we can't replace them as is.

00:29:37.000 If we had a great night last night and we win in 28, there's still nobody who could really replace them.

00:29:42.000 They're just that good.

00:29:44.000 So, I mean, we're stuck in a position where either they retire early and we try and ram them through in six weeks, which would definitely inspire the Democrats to pack the court and expand it to 13.

00:29:57.000 Correct.

00:29:58.000 Yeah, that's not a good strategy because it'll delegitimize the court.

00:30:01.000 Exactly.

00:30:02.000 Or we just make sure we wrap them in bubble wrap and take them to the doctors every week and do full body scans to make sure they're okay.

00:30:08.000 I mean, these are our options right now.

00:30:10.000 So, the ramifications also for the census, all right?

00:30:14.000 So, if we don't win in 28, And I want everybody to start putting all of your energy and your mindset into 2028.

00:30:20.000 Because if we don't win that with the redoing of the census in 2030, because remember, 2020 was botched with COVID, it's a mess.

00:30:28.000 And the 2030 census is going to move a lot more political power into states that Republicans should control, but we didn't last night.

00:30:37.000 I guess the question then becomes okay, so if it was the wrong political mistake, the wrong political calculus to go in at all, and then to not take the MOU off ramp, Who ends up coming out at all unscathed?

00:30:51.000 Who has a potential in 2028 at this point, Will?

00:30:56.000 So, DeSantis is making a lot of noise yesterday and today.

00:31:01.000 You've got a lot of people saying Rubio, a lot of people saying Vance.

00:31:05.000 How does this change how you're thinking about 2028?

00:31:09.000 Well, it blows everything wide open, right?

00:31:10.000 And obviously, it's suddenly, I mean, if Trump changes course and improves his standing, which happens, right?

00:31:18.000 I mean, you look back at Clinton in 94, he got wiped out in that.

00:31:22.000 First midterm, and then came back to win re election.

00:31:24.000 So it's not unheard of.

00:31:25.000 I mean, two years is a long time in politics.

00:31:27.000 Things could change a lot in terms of how Trump's endorsement is perceived.

00:31:30.000 But you see the fact that JD put out that post today where he's saying clearly the Iran war was a mistake.

00:31:35.000 It wasn't worth the loss of our Senate seats.

00:31:37.000 And that's not the same message that Trump was putting out on Hannity last night or on Fox, at least.

00:31:42.000 I think it was Hannity.

00:31:44.000 So, you know, obviously JD's willing to break a little bit with the president.

00:31:48.000 So it's much more wide open.

00:31:50.000 Like before this midterm, I would have said to you that whoever Trump picks will be the nominee.

00:31:54.000 Now I don't think that's as obvious at all.

00:31:56.000 And I think, It's also going to lead to some interesting consequences.

00:31:59.000 Like, even if, for example, say Trump wanted to continue the war and wanted to escalate things, well, it's not merely that there's going to be 56, 57 Democratic senators who are going to want to oppose that.

00:32:10.000 It's that the remaining senators see the writing on the wall and aren't going to want to lose their seats in the next cycle.

00:32:15.000 So they're probably would be willing to override a veto to defund it.

00:32:19.000 So I think it's not even just even whether or not you think the war should end.

00:32:24.000 I mean, I think it should end as a result of this thing, but whether or not you think that it kind of has to.

00:32:29.000 And it will.

00:32:30.000 I don't think Republican senators are willing to give up their seats.

00:32:32.000 Trump may not be running for reelection again, but those senators are.

00:32:35.000 I even go beyond when I think about what would have to bring people back because I think there's a lot of burned trust that people said, okay, I'll give Trump a shot in 24.

00:32:44.000 I think he's a different type of Republican.

00:32:46.000 He's not like Bush.

00:32:47.000 He's not like these people who love these Middle East conflicts.

00:32:51.000 He's not like Lindsey Graham.

00:32:53.000 And they feel really burned by that.

00:32:56.000 Do you even think it's enough to end the war?

00:32:59.000 I almost worry you've got to be ending the war and then also be saying, I'm also.

00:33:03.000 Bringing troops home.

00:33:04.000 I'm closing bases down in the Middle East.

00:33:07.000 I'm making it so this can't happen again.

00:33:10.000 Do we need to be talking that level of change in our Middle East policies?

00:33:14.000 Probably, honestly.

00:33:15.000 And I think it wouldn't even be a bad idea.

00:33:16.000 I think one of the interesting military aspects of this war is it revealed that fixed bases aren't very useful in the Middle East because they're just sitting ducks for ballistic missiles and drones.

00:33:26.000 You'll notice that we kind of withdrew all our troops from our forward bases and put them on carriers that were moving so they couldn't be easily hit by ballistics.

00:33:32.000 So I think that would be probably a wise thing to do anyway.

00:33:37.000 There's a whole different set of interesting military issues to talk about with this war, what it revealed about modern military doctrine, where we're weak, where we're strong.

00:33:47.000 And that's a whole other show's worth of stuff.

00:33:49.000 But yeah, I think that back to your original question, yeah, I think there's a lot that has to be done on this front.

00:33:55.000 But in a world where things go back to improving and the next two years are laser focused on the economy, I think people have short memories in the same way that we won, Trump won and then lost and then won again.

00:34:07.000 And then is now has lost a big midterm.

00:34:09.000 So, you know, one of my biggest frustrations, my frustrations, Will, is the short term memory that people have for immigration, forgetting the caravans that were coming over and, you know, storming the border and customs and border patrol.

00:34:26.000 And how, but, but the wrong lesson at the same time that would we could take from last night is that immigration was somehow a loser for us.

00:34:35.000 The exit polls actually show that as the lone bright spot, really.

00:34:39.000 Is they still like Republicans on immigration more.

00:34:41.000 That is a good sign.

00:34:42.000 So when you look at young men going far, far to the left, when you look at Latinos going far to the left, the fact that we were still on exit polls winning on one issue, immigration, tells you just about everything you need to know.

00:34:54.000 And I will say, I don't remember anybody running on immigration.

00:34:57.000 I don't remember any of the messages.

00:34:58.000 The New York Times didn't talk about it in their Democrat endorsement.

00:35:01.000 They talked about Trump's out of control, that the war is bad.

00:35:04.000 They talked about things like that.

00:35:06.000 They didn't talk about immigration.

00:35:07.000 And they did in 2018 and 2020.

00:35:09.000 That's the Washington Bark right there.

00:35:11.000 Guess who did talk about immigration a lot?

00:35:11.000 Immigration.

00:35:14.000 One person that I can think of: Brandon Gill.

00:35:18.000 And he won his seat handily in a district that went 11 points for Tal Rico.

00:35:23.000 The other issue when we're talking about Iran is Israel.

00:35:27.000 JD brought it up.

00:35:28.000 You are an Israel supporter.

00:35:31.000 But how does this make you, as somebody that is a supporter of Israel, how does this change your thinking?

00:35:38.000 Maybe it doesn't.

00:35:39.000 But what are you now contemplating on that topic specifically?

00:35:43.000 Well, I mean, the funny thing is, I think on the core U.S. Israel issue of, say, financing for aid, I mean, Trump announced that was going away.

00:35:50.000 And that's something that not only I support, but most people would, I think, be surprised to find out most right wing Israelis support it as well.

00:35:58.000 They want, they feel like it's a way that they can be controlled by the United States themselves, which is sort of ironic given the way that this debate normally happens.

00:36:05.000 But that's actually true.

00:36:08.000 I would say that, in terms of, I mean, some people want to go further and sort of like end the American Israeli alliance.

00:36:14.000 I think that would be a very, very dramatic mistake.

00:36:17.000 And that's really at first and foremost based on concrete American interests.

00:36:22.000 Israel is a cybersecurity power and an AI power.

00:36:25.000 Both of those things are going to be extraordinarily important for the United States going forward.

00:36:29.000 And Many of the arguments I hear from people are something along the lines of, well, you know, they remind me of the 1970s.

00:36:35.000 They're something like, oh, well, you know, it's Israel that's creating all these problems for us in the Arab world, and we'd improve our relations with Arab countries and improve our ability to access oil.

00:36:43.000 But, you know, we're still, we're actually the biggest oil producing country in the world.

00:36:48.000 The real and honestly AI and cyber technology is going to be much, much more important in the coming 20, 30 years for our national security than any of this stuff.

00:36:56.000 That said, I think that Israel rightly will, I think, understand that.

00:37:00.000 Our availability to help in their conflicts is basically zeroed out for the foreseeable future.

00:37:05.000 That they're going to be handled, they are going to need to handle everything on their own.

00:37:08.000 And I think they're in a much stronger position to do so now after the events of the last few years.

00:37:12.000 Well, you know, what's interesting is that when we were looking at those exit polls, you know, there was a lot of ink spilled in Michigan that the Jewish vote was going to come Mike Rogers' way.

00:37:20.000 Exit polls would indicate the opposite that they basically stayed static, that you got about two thirds that vote Democrat and one third that vote Republican.

00:37:27.000 So we didn't even see a movement there.

00:37:29.000 And I think that.

00:37:31.000 Those exit polls are going to echo the ripple effects from those.

00:37:34.000 You can expect those in a lot of talking points from Israel skeptics moving forward, Will.

00:37:39.000 Yeah, I'll push back a little bit on that because remember, we only won 51% of the white vote, right?

00:37:43.000 The directionally, do we want a lot?

00:37:45.000 You know, the Jews trended towards us while basically everybody else trended Democrat.

00:37:49.000 So in a normal election year, I think we actually probably would have, you know, if it were a D plus one environment instead of a D plus 13 environment, we're looking at maybe 55, 45.

00:37:59.000 So there's a lot of, you know, that's non trivial.

00:38:01.000 And also, I mean, El Sayed performed way underneath almost all the other Senate candidates.

00:38:06.000 You almost got me excited last night when I saw your tweet on it.

00:38:09.000 You were like, don't sleep on that.

00:38:11.000 I was like, oh, I went right back into the numbers.

00:38:13.000 You were looking at some of the other ones.

00:38:14.000 It was a closer race than Texas.

00:38:16.000 Yeah, it was closer than Iowa, closer than Kansas.

00:38:16.000 Yeah.

00:38:19.000 The only really one that did better was Susan Collins in Maine's, which of course she would.

00:38:23.000 But El Sayed dramatically underperformed.

00:38:25.000 He was a repellent candidate who drove a lot of people who loathe Republicans to vote Republican.

00:38:30.000 So I wouldn't say, now that said, I think this has to be tempered by the fact that.

00:38:35.000 The Jewish population in this country is not massive.

00:38:36.000 And so, you know, you obviously shouldn't think like, ah, the real way that we're going to win going forward is by going hard for the Jewish vote.

00:38:44.000 But it's also not a reason to antagonize it.

00:38:46.000 Yeah, I will tell you that there is one of the main things that I'm seeing is people are really upset at Mark Thiessen.

00:38:54.000 You know, that op ed, I saw that everywhere.

00:38:56.000 There's no downside to striking Iran.

00:38:58.000 I mean, one of the wrongest headlines, I mean, to be fair, Mark probably didn't write the headline.

00:39:03.000 The editors at the Washington Post.

00:39:05.000 Probably wrote that, but I mean, the substance of the op ed was directionally in that line.

00:39:11.000 So I've seen that everywhere.

00:39:13.000 I've seen a lot of people upset with the neocons writ large and this sort of thing.

00:39:18.000 And I think there's some truth here.

00:39:19.000 I think that they read the room wrong.

00:39:21.000 I think that they read the room wrong, and people like Charlie read the room right because guess what?

00:39:25.000 He's talking to students all the time.

00:39:26.000 He's talking to our kids.

00:39:29.000 I can tell you that in South Carolina, for example, a lot of our chapter members at Clemson didn't like Darlene.

00:39:35.000 They didn't want to vote for Darlene because they associated her with Lindsey Graham in the war in Iran.

00:39:41.000 And so that's just a political reality, and that's going to have ramifications with Israel moving forward.

00:39:47.000 It just is.

00:39:48.000 And those are hard politics.

00:39:50.000 Well, last minute and a half here.

00:39:53.000 Anything else that you think is important that we're looking at right now as we assess the aftermath?

00:39:59.000 Yeah, I want to answer, you know, point out that we, you know, I'm help out with NatCon and the Edmund Burke Foundation, and we put on NatCon Jerusalem, and it took an enormous amount of heat from pro Israel forces for having bringing young, new right people to kind of come to Israel and describe like how things are changing on the relationship.

00:40:16.000 We took an enormous amount of heat for that.

00:40:18.000 We did.

00:40:19.000 From pro Israel forces.

00:40:20.000 And I think that the election results kind of show why we did that.

00:40:23.000 That this is a real issue that needs to be confronted honestly and not have people to get shouted down if they're, you know, have questions about the U.S. Israel relationship.

00:40:33.000 And I think it really does need to be rebuilt on firmer foundations.

00:40:36.000 I think that's the most I agree with.

00:40:38.000 And I don't mean to paint you as some sort of like starry eyed, you know, no questions asked guy, because that's not what you are.

00:40:44.000 You are a nuanced guy.

00:40:46.000 You're looking deeply at that issue and you understand that there are headwinds there for that alliance.

00:40:53.000 So, yeah, and I think those are really important.

00:40:55.000 I mean, for me, I draw the line at, It's kind of like porn, right?

00:41:00.000 The famous Supreme Court lawyer.

00:41:02.000 You know it when you see it.

00:41:03.000 Anti Semitism, you know it when you see it.

00:41:05.000 And, you know, the ADL and all these guys have done such a disservice to Jews around the world by calling things that were anti Semitic, anti Semitic.

00:41:11.000 Well, that's why Charlie started using Jew hate.

00:41:13.000 Yeah.

00:41:14.000 So we don't even use that word anymore most of the time.

00:41:17.000 You know it when you see it.

00:41:17.000 It's Jew hate.

00:41:19.000 But there's a lot of things that are called anti Semitic that are simply not.

00:41:23.000 And we need to be open to those conversations.

00:41:25.000 What you guys did in Jerusalem at NatCon was important and really important for a step and very prescient.

00:41:31.000 Will Chamberlain, thank you, my friend.

00:41:33.000 Thank you for your honesty.

00:41:34.000 We'll talk to you soon.

00:41:37.000 An important message from Noble Gold Investments.

00:41:40.000 November 3rd, control of Congress is on the line.

00:41:43.000 And whatever happens, your savings are going to feel it.

00:41:46.000 If Democrats take power, we could be looking at years of gridlock, followed by the same policies that fueled inflation before more spending, bigger deficits, and a weaker dollar.

00:41:54.000 We lived through this already.

00:41:55.000 In June 2022, inflation was out of control and unchecked.

00:41:59.000 Now, the national debt is over $40 trillion, and Washington isn't slowing down.

00:42:04.000 What has gold done since 2022?

00:42:07.000 Doubled, up over 100%.

00:42:09.000 That's right.

00:42:10.000 You can't control what happens on election day.

00:42:12.000 You can control how prepared you are.

00:42:14.000 That's why so many Americans are turning to physical gold and silver.

00:42:17.000 Visit noblegoldinvestments.comslash Kirk.

00:42:20.000 That's noblegoldinvestments.comslash Kirk and download your free wealth protection kit.

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00:42:28.000 Is your wealth protected?

00:42:29.000 If not, now is the time to act.

00:42:32.000 Past performance does not guarantee future results.

00:42:37.000 It is the day after, and we are looking through the rubble, trying to make sense of what just happened.

00:42:45.000 And one man who has been proven right, who's a friend, somebody I stay in constant contact with, and pick his brain on polling.

00:42:52.000 And man, I can tell you, even behind the scenes, he was right.

00:42:56.000 And now his book is surging again on Amazon.

00:42:59.000 So pick up a copy of it, burn it down with Rich Barris and Joshua Lysak.

00:43:04.000 Those are the authors.

00:43:05.000 Rich, welcome back to the show.

00:43:07.000 Um,.

00:43:08.000 You know, I talked to you this morning.

00:43:10.000 Better late than never, brother.

00:43:11.000 What?

00:43:13.000 Better late than never, brother.

00:43:14.000 I know, right?

00:43:15.000 Pick up the book.

00:43:17.000 You know, I talked.

00:43:17.000 I mean, listen, I know that there's a lot of visceral anger that you feel because you feel a little bit like the prophet in the Old Testament waving your hands saying, you know, guys, you got to wake up.

00:43:31.000 This is what's happening.

00:43:32.000 And they didn't listen.

00:43:34.000 And a lot of people attacked you.

00:43:36.000 And I want, putting that aside, because we've all been attacked.

00:43:41.000 Jeez, I've been attacked a lot.

00:43:43.000 Yeah, of course.

00:43:45.000 But putting that aside, We need to look at the numbers, right?

00:43:49.000 Some of the exit polling, right?

00:43:51.000 And we need to start identifying what really happened here and what they were responding to because I think different groups are responding to different things, right?

00:44:00.000 You've got young men, they went hard left.

00:44:04.000 We've got Latinos going left, but Blake made a good point, not as far left as they were in 2020.

00:44:10.000 So maybe there's some more, I don't know.

00:44:14.000 Well, that depends where.

00:44:15.000 Yeah, okay, fair enough.

00:44:16.000 Yeah.

00:44:17.000 So, but the point is, each group is probably responding to the big overall economy, affordability, Iran war topics, maybe a little tariffs here and there.

00:44:27.000 But there's other things that played a part in this too, right?

00:44:30.000 The perception of, you know, corruption within the admin.

00:44:34.000 There's the, you know, the other things of, you know, naming ballrooms and things like this, naming bodies of water and ballrooms, beautification things.

00:44:43.000 If you had to pick the top three buckets for what moved the electorate, and I'm going to pull up the exit poll here and we'll go one by one.

00:44:50.000 But, Give us your top three.

00:44:52.000 All right.

00:44:53.000 So the narrative was this it was blaming the Iran war, which was a broken promise.

00:45:01.000 We have to call it what it is.

00:45:02.000 All right.

00:45:03.000 If you want to have any hope to fix things, guys, you have to address it head on and you have to call it what it is, even if it upsets people and even if it could get you in a little trouble.

00:45:14.000 The voters were promised no new wars and a man that they know has been able to laser focus, target on the economy, and make their lives better.

00:45:23.000 They, They picked him and brought him back because everything during the Biden administration was just lies.

00:45:30.000 And they made a mistake.

00:45:31.000 And they knew they made that mistake.

00:45:34.000 And they wanted Trump back because they knew he was a good president.

00:45:38.000 He could keep foreign policy to a quiet noise because he's just handling deals like the Abraham Accords.

00:45:45.000 And he could be laser focused on the economy.

00:45:47.000 Number one, 100% was prices and cost of living.

00:45:50.000 But it wasn't just that.

00:45:52.000 It's not just an economic message.

00:45:55.000 Guys, prices were getting better before.

00:45:57.000 he started the Iran, we started the Iran war.

00:45:59.000 They knew that.

00:45:59.000 All right.

00:46:01.000 So they blamed the war and they blamed the lobby and this broken promise for the economy getting worse, which is why when they asked, do you blame Trump for prices?

00:46:12.000 Do you blame Trump for the economy?

00:46:14.000 I think those numbers, they're bad and they're somewhat, you know, his supporters will say they're somewhat unfair, but what they're missing is they blamed the war for those prices.

00:46:24.000 They blamed the war for the economy.

00:46:26.000 So they held him personally responsible for it.

00:46:29.000 And Republicans are losers.

00:46:30.000 Let me just say this.

00:46:31.000 Everyone who wants to pile on the president this morning and they want to blame the president, you guys were losers before Donald Trump came along, and you'll be losers after Donald Trump is gone if you don't learn the right lessons.

00:46:44.000 He taught you the right lesson.

00:46:46.000 It's economic populism.

00:46:47.000 It's America first.

00:46:49.000 It's no new wars.

00:46:50.000 It is not going back to corporate oligarchy that the Republican Party represented before Donald Trump came along.

00:46:56.000 I have a question on that, Rich.

00:46:58.000 Yeah, I just.

00:46:58.000 There's been a lot of people that have been made, a lot of people have made the point that this.

00:47:02.000 You know, when we expand a coalition, right?

00:47:05.000 So we've got now we've got the tech bros.

00:47:06.000 We've got a bunch of tech bros that like joined in 2024.

00:47:09.000 How much did that perception in your polling and what you can see bleed into this feeling that the admin had been co opted by the sort of tech oligarchy?

00:47:21.000 The interesting thing about this, this is a great question, man, because the interesting thing is that Elon Musk, when he was pushed out, was actually still extremely popular among under 45 year old men.

00:47:33.000 Where his numbers went south was actually with older people during Doge, the boomers who thought he's going to cut my Social Security.

00:47:40.000 All right.

00:47:41.000 Which, by the way, look what we did.

00:47:42.000 We sacrificed our entire coalition to win boomers by about four points.

00:47:46.000 It was pathetic.

00:47:47.000 But in any event, it's not the tech bros, it's how they advanced, well, they didn't advance the conversation about artificial intelligence and data centers.

00:47:58.000 We had polling out of the years over this, Andrew.

00:48:02.000 They wanted the data centers in urban areas.

00:48:05.000 They were more popular in urban areas, yet they were being dumped, or the threat of being dumped in, you know, Rural areas in Florida, where there's, you know, a Gator Alley.

00:48:16.000 And even in Texas, there were rural farmers that were telling us, I don't want it here.

00:48:20.000 Iowa, Ohio, everywhere.

00:48:22.000 And they didn't even bother, like the war, they didn't even bother to engage in a conversation.

00:48:27.000 They just, they thought a one and a half point national popular vote lead in 2024 was enough to just browbeat people and do whatever you want.

00:48:36.000 That's not how this goes.

00:48:38.000 And unfortunately, when you don't engage the American public and you don't win them over, you lose their favor.

00:48:43.000 And they start to begin to not trust you.

00:48:45.000 And this just be like so many of these other issues, it became a credibility gap.

00:48:50.000 So, even by the time they realized they had a problem with data centers, you have to understand when you lose the trust of the voter, later, if you try to come back and talk to them about these things, they just don't believe you.

00:49:02.000 So, that is a textbook example of what happened here.

00:49:05.000 Data centers, Iran, Israel, whatever issue it was, they were in this credibility gap.

00:49:10.000 So, if they even by this time attempted to pivot, And almost wouldn't have worked.

00:49:15.000 They just ran through things, brother, without even trying to.

00:49:19.000 Yeah, it was.

00:49:21.000 I even remember in 2025 hearing people in DC say a lot of people are behaving like they have won every election for the rest of time, that we will never lose power, never lose an election again.

00:49:33.000 Like incredible overconfidence, the hubris, smugness, hubris.

00:49:36.000 Hubris is my nemesis.

00:49:37.000 Yes.

00:49:39.000 So I want to ask you because I see some people mentioning corruption as a topic.

00:49:43.000 Tanner Greer on X is a guy I like to read.

00:49:45.000 He said, Top issues are Iran and corruption.

00:49:48.000 He talked about betting market stuff, the sense that there's insider dealing within the administration.

00:49:54.000 That relates to the tech question, of course, as well.

00:49:58.000 You talk to a lot of people.

00:50:00.000 Is there awareness of that?

00:50:01.000 Do you think that that played a role in the election, the sense that the administration had corrupt people in it, or was that not coming up?

00:50:09.000 No, it did.

00:50:10.000 We do a rank distribution for the most important issues.

00:50:13.000 So we don't say, which is your number one?

00:50:15.000 I mean, we do that too, but we'll say rank.

00:50:17.000 Your issues, your top 10 or your top 12, and we do 12 most of the time.

00:50:22.000 And everything else, we just don't even show if it's not making it onto that list.

00:50:26.000 But corruption and accountability surged and bumped other issues like crime and safety, where Republicans had some strength.

00:50:33.000 It bumped foreign policy, guys, was always like seven to nine.

00:50:37.000 Nobody cared.

00:50:38.000 And corruption and accountability, I believe, ended four nationally.

00:50:42.000 I have to go look it up, but it came out of nowhere.

00:50:44.000 So did AI data centers, which I believe ended just ahead of foreign policy.

00:50:49.000 It was there, and I'll tell you what opened the door to it.

00:50:53.000 And it's not even like there's something there that they're saying, okay, there's something in the Epstein files.

00:50:58.000 It was a proxy.

00:50:59.000 You're not going to hold the ruling class accountable.

00:51:01.000 And now I'm hearing all these stories about crypto this and pardons that.

00:51:05.000 It just also.

00:51:06.000 This is so key, Rich, what you're talking about, because when I call them psychic breaks with the bass, you know, you were right about that.

00:51:14.000 I remember that last year when you said that.

00:51:16.000 Yeah, Trump said, you remember when he famously said, I could shoot somebody on 5th or 6th Avenue, I forget which Avenue, and my bass would still have me.

00:51:24.000 And that was true at the time.

00:51:26.000 And I think there was this belief that that would hold true.

00:51:29.000 But when you have these psychic breaks with stuff that are wildly important to the bass, like Epstein, then every other thing becomes magnified.

00:51:39.000 That they have an issue with.

00:51:40.000 And it's because of the credibility gap that starts emerging.

00:51:44.000 Everything gets nitpicked.

00:51:45.000 Everything gets awfulized in the voting electorate.

00:51:49.000 Even the base starts applying the worst possible interpretation to all of those topics.

00:51:54.000 That's right.

00:51:54.000 And so when you talk about things that open the door to things, that's what we're talking about.

00:51:59.000 And some of it is irrational.

00:52:01.000 And I think that's why some of the emails we get, like, ah, this is some of it's irrational.

00:52:05.000 Perception is reality.

00:52:09.000 Yes, we are aware that President Trump is touting.

00:52:13.000 White House renovations right now.

00:52:14.000 We've got a few emails.

00:52:16.000 Yeah.

00:52:17.000 We're aware of it.

00:52:18.000 Apparently, he also did acknowledge that the Iran war tanked everything.

00:52:18.000 Yeah.

00:52:23.000 So, Rich Barris is with us.

00:52:26.000 Rich, one of the more interesting things that is coming out of this is how this changes the landscape for 2028 and why 2028 matters.

00:52:35.000 Let me just remind you for a lot of reasons.

00:52:37.000 I mean, I think the Democrats, if they get control of power in 2028, they will destroy America.

00:52:41.000 I think as big as 2026 was, 2028 is.

00:52:46.000 It is completely existential.

00:52:48.000 Right now, we still have a conservative executive, okay?

00:52:52.000 But 2028 will then control the census in 2030.

00:52:55.000 Yes.

00:52:55.000 And that's going to.

00:52:56.000 And there actually will be redistricting in 28.

00:52:59.000 That's why this was important.

00:53:02.000 Last night was important because we just got the crap kicked out of us.

00:53:05.000 It was a problem.

00:53:06.000 We got bodied.

00:53:08.000 We got bloodied.

00:53:09.000 I mean, it was a bad night.

00:53:10.000 Yeah.

00:53:11.000 Interestingly enough, DeSantis timed this Stephen A. Smith interview.

00:53:17.000 For the day of the election, it came out the day of the election.

00:53:20.000 He named names like Christine Ohm.

00:53:22.000 I think he said Corey Lewandowski.

00:53:23.000 Deserved.

00:53:24.000 Talked about civic virtue.

00:53:28.000 He talked about how he sold all his stocks and he didn't trade at all when he was in Congress.

00:53:34.000 Scored a lot of.

00:53:35.000 I mean, honestly, it's like hard to believe that wasn't timed on purpose because it was such a litany of things.

00:53:43.000 Yeah, of course.

00:53:44.000 Well, so now the three names that I'm hearing, and there could be a dark horse candidate, and I still think there could be.

00:53:50.000 JD, Marco.

00:53:51.000 Now, DeSantis is a lot louder today.

00:53:55.000 What do you make of this new landscape and what's emerging after last night?

00:54:00.000 Funny thing the Florida, the Sunshine State poll that we did, which was correct.

00:54:05.000 And we caught a lot of flack for it because we showed a very close governor's race.

00:54:09.000 And that was right.

00:54:12.000 So our record in Florida goes unmatched again.

00:54:17.000 I had Vance, DeSantis, Rubio for the nomination in the Sunshine State.

00:54:24.000 In Florida.

00:54:25.000 Here's my concern, and I think the Florida governor is a fantastic governor.

00:54:29.000 I think he's probably everyone's favorite governor, right?

00:54:32.000 On the Republican side.

00:54:34.000 You're talking about DeSantis, not Byron at that point.

00:54:36.000 No, DeSantis.

00:54:37.000 No, Byron's got to earn his way.

00:54:40.000 And let's hope he governs better than he campaigns.

00:54:42.000 I'm just saying it.

00:54:44.000 Look, the problem I have is that I'm a numbers guy and I look at the map, and I'm just going to say this flatly, as clearly as I can, because I can clearly see the bad actors already.

00:54:55.000 They wake up early and they start all over again, even though they didn't just resolve.

00:55:00.000 They just, yes.

00:55:01.000 You consider bad actors.

00:55:02.000 Brother, they're bad actors.

00:55:03.000 I mean, there's a lot of them.

00:55:04.000 Yeah.

00:55:04.000 They're bad actors.

00:55:05.000 They're bad actors.

00:55:06.000 I don't consider them.

00:55:06.000 They are bad actors.

00:55:08.000 They have their own interests in mind.

00:55:09.000 They don't have the interests of the president, what the future is with his family, making sure that his family isn't hunted to the ends of the earth when he's out of the White House, his kids.

00:55:20.000 I mean, these are the things the president is going to have to worry about in the very near future.

00:55:25.000 All these people care about is how much PAC money they can bill to their firms.

00:55:30.000 That's all.

00:55:31.000 And Marco Rubio has zero chance to win the presidency.

00:55:35.000 Why do you say that, Rich?

00:55:36.000 You told me that on the phone.

00:55:37.000 Zero.

00:55:38.000 Why, why, no, break it down, be specific.

00:55:40.000 We got three minutes left.

00:55:41.000 Let me be specific.

00:55:42.000 Yeah, which Marco Rubio cannot win?

00:55:45.000 He cannot win the Midwest, and you cannot get to 270 unless you win the Rust Belt and part of the Mid Atlantic.

00:55:52.000 He can't do it.

00:55:53.000 He's not going to win the white working class.

00:55:57.000 He doesn't in our polling, which we're going to reveal very soon.

00:56:00.000 The entire time we've been polling, I haven't released it all.

00:56:03.000 We've done not just top of the tickets, but combinations of tickets.

00:56:07.000 This idea that Marco Rubio is a Hispanics, so he's going to win Hispanics in Texas and a growing population of Hispanics in Georgia is laughable.

00:56:16.000 An 80 year old billionaire from Queens, New York won more Hispanics than any Republican presidential candidate in the history of exit polls and hate.

00:56:26.000 It's more attitudinal.

00:56:27.000 It's more attitudinal swagger.

00:56:29.000 It's like, and I do agree with that.

00:56:31.000 It's a rational policy choice, brother.

00:56:33.000 They don't like this.

00:56:34.000 Marco's being all quiet and cute right now about how he's not a neocon.

00:56:38.000 He is a neocon.

00:56:40.000 And that foreign policy.

00:56:41.000 Killed us.

00:56:43.000 DeSantis has got that label before in the past too, Rich.

00:56:45.000 That DeSantis has the neocon thing, right?

00:56:48.000 When it came to Ukraine and he made some comments during that.

00:56:51.000 Yeah.

00:56:52.000 Do you not think that that would impact him?

00:56:54.000 We'll see.

00:56:55.000 I'm actually willing to give DeSantis a little bit of a chance because just from things that I see him say, it's possible for people to have a sincere change of opinion.

00:57:07.000 And I can't help but wonder if that actually is the case with DeSantis.

00:57:11.000 But my issue is.

00:57:14.000 How it doesn't matter what I think, it's how voters are going to look at these men and how they're going to think.

00:57:19.000 There's going to be one guy who comes out of this thing saying, Not only was I not for this, I tried to stop it.

00:57:25.000 There's one guy who is a millennial veteran from the Midwest who can win the Midwest.

00:57:31.000 And I don't even think it's fair for us to do this to the vice president, just so I'm very clear.

00:57:36.000 I'm not sure we deserve him.

00:57:38.000 I'm not sure it's fair to put all of this on his shoulders.

00:57:41.000 I know that other people are like, Hey, you don't get to pick fate.

00:57:44.000 No, he does.

00:57:45.000 It's up to him, it's his own future.

00:57:47.000 But I'm telling you, he is the only one who can win.

00:57:51.000 Do you think that he can pull out of what just happened last night and put the coalition back together or a coalition that's.

00:58:00.000 You do.

00:58:01.000 I do.

00:58:01.000 Give me the list of the five groups.

00:58:02.000 Five groups he can make a difference.

00:58:04.000 I think he's the only one.

00:58:05.000 Yeah, that's just perfect.

00:58:06.000 I think he's the only one who can do it, but it's narrow to be sure, guys.

00:58:11.000 He has to take a certain stance, but I got the polling to prove it.

00:58:14.000 I mean, young men are a massive problem that's going to be an issue for us.

00:58:18.000 The white working class in general swung against us.

00:58:21.000 They went back like almost to the, you know, most of them who swung against us, a lot of them just stayed home.

00:58:27.000 That's a big problem.

00:58:28.000 So we need someone who can turn them out.

00:58:29.000 Hispanics, again, do not vote for last name.

00:58:32.000 They vote for, they make rational policy choices like everybody else.

00:58:35.000 The vice president, go look at the vice president's tweet today.

00:58:38.000 He's the only one who, so far, as somebody who polled this election correctly and spoke to God knows how many Americans, he's the only one who articulated why we lost correctly.

00:58:48.000 That's it.

00:58:48.000 And yes, DeSantis tried, you know, that night before to do it.

00:58:51.000 And I see the clock running out.

00:58:53.000 But unless you were there, I'm not sure you truly know.

00:58:59.000 Burn It Down, new bestseller.

00:59:01.000 Rich's getting that second wave of book sales today.

00:59:04.000 Second wave!

00:59:05.000 Go check it out.

00:59:06.000 Rich, thanks for joining us.

00:59:07.000 Thanks, guys.

00:59:10.000 Charlie Kirk believed that ideas shape character, conviction, and courage.

00:59:14.000 That's why he spent years studying the classics, the American founding, and the Bible through Hillsdale College's free online courses.

00:59:21.000 Continue that commitment to learning with C.S. Lewis on Christianity, a free seven lesson course featuring Professor Michael Ward, a leading Lewis scholar.

00:59:31.000 Are right and wrong a matter of opinion?

00:59:33.000 How can a good God allow suffering?

00:59:35.000 Lewis's writings take these questions seriously.

00:59:37.000 In works including Mere Christianity and The Abolition of Man, he defends moral truth and explores what Christianity asks of us.

00:59:45.000 You'll follow his journey from unbelief to faith and examine his insights into prayer, grief, and the hope of heaven.

00:59:51.000 Discover lessons that challenge you to think very carefully about Christianity and put your understanding into practice.

00:59:57.000 You can enroll today completely free.

00:59:59.000 Visit charlieforhillsdale.com to start learning today.

01:00:02.000 That's charlieforhillsdale.com.

01:00:05.000 Learn deeply.

01:00:06.000 Think clearly, lead boldly, carry it forward at charlieforhillsdale.com.

01:00:14.000 We've got a ton of emails coming in from you guys, and it's awesome.

01:00:18.000 And I think that's a really good way to end the show today.

01:00:21.000 We're going to interact directly with you if you want to send your thoughts, freedom at charliekirk.com.

01:00:25.000 We're going to hear directly from you.

01:00:27.000 All right, Blake.

01:00:28.000 Let's hear what the audience is saying today.

01:00:28.000 All right.

01:00:30.000 Well, we've got several of them, and so I just queued them up because we have a big range of responses, and we have some people here who might not be here on a normal day as well.

01:00:37.000 People who are, I think, a little more frustrated than our usual viewer.

01:00:39.000 So this is one of the first ones, Diane.

01:00:41.000 Trump basically lied.

01:00:43.000 No Epstein files released in full.

01:00:45.000 Going to war with Iran.

01:00:46.000 I voted for him three times.

01:00:48.000 He made us look like stupid idiots.

01:00:51.000 And you don't have to agree with Diane, but that is a real sentiment a lot of people have.

01:00:55.000 I had family members texting me that way that they felt foolish.

01:00:59.000 They felt like they felt like they felt for something.

01:01:01.000 Because I think that war message, it was so, it appealed to so many people.

01:01:01.000 Yeah.

01:01:06.000 It won over a lot of people.

01:01:08.000 And it was just so directly contradicted by events.

01:01:10.000 You think about Charlie on college campuses.

01:01:12.000 One of the direct.

01:01:14.000 Messages that Charlie would go on college campus and talk about is like, hey, if you vote Kamala or Biden, whenever the debate was happening, they might draft you into a war in Ukraine.

01:01:25.000 And so that was something that resonated with young men that didn't want to go fight another foreign war.

01:01:29.000 Again, if you are of a certain age in this country and it's getting older and older and older, yeah, you grew up with just pure war.

01:01:35.000 You grew up with war and you have no memory of us winning wars.

01:01:37.000 So you associate war with our country in decline, us losing in the Middle East on stuff that no one can explain to you why it's a good idea.

01:01:45.000 It was such a winning message for Trump to be able to sit, for people to say, this is a different type of Republican who gets it on that issue.

01:01:52.000 And it hurt really badly.

01:01:53.000 And that's why I talked with Will.

01:01:55.000 It might not even be enough to end the war.

01:01:57.000 We need to really credibly show we are dismantling the apparatus that made these wars happen.

01:02:02.000 I want to add something, too, because I tweeted this morning that it's time to end the Iran war.

01:02:07.000 I have no idea what the reaction to that has been.

01:02:09.000 I got a number of texts from journalists.

01:02:13.000 Here's what I'd say.

01:02:16.000 You know, what somebody said when the first thing I said was, you know, that they said before we got on the show was a little too late.

01:02:22.000 And I will say, sure, I've gotten that critique from Dave Smith last night.

01:02:27.000 The truth is, if you are an avid watcher of this show, you've probably sent me an email or sent Blake an email saying you guys are too negative on the war.

01:02:34.000 Yeah, we've gotten a lot of those.

01:02:36.000 So I have been trying to speak up and make my point heard.

01:02:39.000 But yeah, when Trump first did it, we extended him some leash to do it.

01:02:46.000 You know, we elected him to do, which was make hard decisions.

01:02:49.000 It has not panned out.

01:02:50.000 It has been a total political loser.

01:02:54.000 And maybe I shouldn't have given him that leash.

01:02:56.000 I certainly didn't want that war in the first place.

01:02:58.000 But we were trying to do the best that we could to honor how Charlie, we thought Charlie would handle it.

01:03:02.000 Because ultimately, we are still trying to live up to some of the things that Charlie left us and the vision that Charlie had.

01:03:09.000 And so, candidly, it's the most impossible thing for us to be in a position of.

01:03:15.000 And it's a real thing.

01:03:16.000 A lot of people have tried to get a lot of attention, money, fame, whatever, by really aggressively saying how Charlie would handle something, react to something, what he would say in the situation.

01:03:29.000 And we're in that tough position because we.

01:03:33.000 Genuinely knew him and we care about him and we love Charlie and his family.

01:03:37.000 Of having to be restrained and say, This is a situation he didn't go through.

01:03:41.000 We don't know exactly what he would do.

01:03:42.000 Here's how he handled related things.

01:03:45.000 And that's what we've said.

01:03:46.000 We've said Charlie would have fought against the war before it happened.

01:03:49.000 He would have not been happy that it broke out.

01:03:52.000 But we don't think he would have torn down the president over that.

01:03:56.000 Don't remember, Charlie worked his tail off to get President Trump elected.

01:03:59.000 And he wasn't trying to burn down the coalition, but he would have been very honest.

01:04:03.000 About the challenges and the strains that that put on it.

01:04:05.000 And that's what we've been trying to do.

01:04:08.000 And after last night, being very clear about where that line is, that it's time to end that, I think was fair.

01:04:16.000 I think 100%.

01:04:17.000 I think that is what Charlie would be doing.

01:04:18.000 He would be blowing up the White House now, saying, guys, this is bold.

01:04:22.000 You've got to go bold, go big, get the focus back on domestic issues, the economy, getting wins for young people, showing that they're your top priority.

01:04:33.000 I think that's what he would be emphasizing.

01:04:35.000 I think that's exactly right.

01:04:36.000 All right, we've got some more here.

01:04:38.000 This is one.

01:04:39.000 Robin says, We wouldn't be in this situation if Charlie was still with us.

01:04:42.000 He wouldn't have let all of those independent, Hispanic, black, young voters switch over to Democrats.

01:04:49.000 It will take years to recover from these losses.

01:04:52.000 Even if we win the presidency in 28, Democrats will still probably control the House and Senate, maybe the Supreme Court.

01:04:58.000 Trump is now live talking about the ballroom the day after the election, the day before he was talking about the reflecting pool.

01:05:05.000 He has become the Trump builder in his presidency.

01:05:08.000 He is out of touch with the voters who elected him.

01:05:10.000 Yeah.

01:05:11.000 I mean, listen, I want to address the first part of that that this wouldn't have happened if Charlie was here.

01:05:15.000 I really think we need to be careful.

01:05:18.000 Charlie was a uniquely powerful voice and influential voice.

01:05:23.000 And yes, things would have been better with Charlie.

01:05:27.000 But, Charlie, you can relate to this, Blake.

01:05:29.000 We had so many conversations looking at the coming fissures and the wedge issues when it comes to Israel and Iran and Epstein.

01:05:37.000 We spent so much time thinking about how to.

01:05:40.000 To message on that and how to deal with it because even Charlie understood that he wasn't going to be able to fix everything that was coming down the pike.

01:05:47.000 So, I, it's important that we don't ascribe supernatural abilities to Charlie.

01:05:53.000 He's a great man.

01:05:54.000 Yeah.

01:05:55.000 Because, yeah, could he have made things better?

01:05:57.000 I definitely think he could have.

01:05:58.000 Would the movement have fractured the way it did if Charlie was still there?

01:06:02.000 Probably not as much, but it definitely would have some.

01:06:05.000 People forget how much Charlie was attacked by very prominent voices.

01:06:08.000 If Charlie was still with us, I think we'd.

01:06:10.000 Have maybe the Mississippi Senate seat.

01:06:12.000 We win that instead of being down on it.

01:06:14.000 Maybe we win.

01:06:15.000 Maybe we hang on in Maine.

01:06:16.000 I don't think he would make us not lose in Texas the way we did.

01:06:19.000 I just think, yeah, this was so much bigger and so structural that it really comes down to this was a rebuttal, a rebuke, I mean, of some of the president's policies.

01:06:33.000 It was.

01:06:33.000 I guess.

01:06:34.000 You don't get this deep, you don't get a D plus 15 electorate, you know, for nothing, okay?

01:06:42.000 So, okay.

01:06:43.000 Maybe he'd have stopped the war.

01:06:44.000 Then maybe we can talk about that.

01:06:45.000 But even that, there were a lot of voices arguing against the war who were not listened to, and there were a lot of voices fighting for it as well.

01:06:53.000 Next email.

01:06:53.000 And all right.

01:06:55.000 HC says either we reset our relationship with Israel and the Middle East or the Democrats will do it for us after 2028.

01:07:03.000 Thank you for breaking down last night's mess.

01:07:05.000 Keep fighting.

01:07:06.000 I think that's totally valid.

01:07:08.000 I think that's totally valid.

01:07:09.000 It's going to happen one way or the other.

01:07:12.000 The question is, you know, and I go back to what Will Chamberlain said in hour one is it going to happen on a more firm, realistic foundation that actually has both countries' best interests at heart?

01:07:23.000 Or is it going to be just like shock and awe and cut off?

01:07:27.000 And by the way, I have long been, you know, I don't get any credit for this, but because I, again, I'm trying to be a coalition builder.

01:07:38.000 I am often very skeptical about some of the stuff in Israel, okay?

01:07:43.000 But the point that Will made is valid.

01:07:46.000 The intel sharing and the tech and the data side of things, Israel is a leader in that, and we do benefit by making sure that some of those lines of communication and sharing and cooperation stay open.

01:07:56.000 Now, that doesn't mean we should be subservient to them, that doesn't mean that they should be a vassal state of the United States, but I completely agree.

01:08:02.000 It's going to be reset.

01:08:04.000 It will, one way or the other.

01:08:06.000 The question is on our terms or theirs.

01:08:08.000 All right, next email.

01:08:09.000 All righty.

01:08:12.000 Aaron says, unpopular time to appreciate President Trump and all his allies, but I want to thank you all.

01:08:17.000 It is not the end.

01:08:18.000 We will sort things out later.

01:08:20.000 People feeling betrayed hurt a lot.

01:08:23.000 Hating Israel is not the answer.

01:08:24.000 And this person argues, Aaron says, the Iran war was essential.

01:08:28.000 I am upset, though, about the mishandling of the Epstein files.

01:08:32.000 President Trump proved how to bring.

01:08:34.000 Fuel prices down.

01:08:36.000 Duty is duty.

01:08:37.000 Praise God, though, for President Trump.

01:08:39.000 So that's a more pro.

01:08:40.000 Yeah.

01:08:40.000 Well, and let me just tell you that there is a truth in what this listener said.

01:08:46.000 The electorate is fickle.

01:08:48.000 What I'm realizing is these huge swings back and forth are now becoming the political norm.

01:08:54.000 And what that says is there's less loyalty to a political tribe and more a hunger for real political change.

01:09:02.000 No status quo.

01:09:03.000 That's what they're saying.

01:09:04.000 There's a miasma of dissatisfaction and unhappiness that people sense America is in decline, that they have a leadership class that is not aligned with their interests and their concerns, and that things are bad.

01:09:16.000 And they are kind of constantly reaching out.

01:09:20.000 They love to cyclically punish people unless they're in one of those just an unwinnable state for one party or the other.

01:09:25.000 A lot of division.

01:09:27.000 And it makes me so sad because I do think they're reaching out for a coalition that gets them and speaks to them.

01:09:35.000 And we had a big chance in 2024, and a lot of damage was done by specific decisions that we made.

01:09:43.000 It's like I said yesterday if we were losing because of immigration, if people said ISIS is the number one issue, we hate the deportations, it's so ugly what they've done, we don't like it, that would stink.

01:09:57.000 And we'd have to really think, oh, do we have to change on the issues here?

01:10:01.000 But no, instead, they're saying, we don't like the things you didn't run on in 2024, we just wish you'd stuck.

01:10:07.000 To what you ran on.

01:10:08.000 Yeah.

01:10:09.000 Next email.

01:10:09.000 I've got another minute.

01:10:10.000 Oh, yeah, for sure.

01:10:11.000 Let's see.

01:10:13.000 Bob says last night's elections were a total catastrophe.

01:10:16.000 I think Charlie would have been and probably is disturbed about the result.

01:10:20.000 The big problem we have is too many spineless Republicans.

01:10:23.000 The leader in the Senate, Thune, they should get him out now.

01:10:27.000 Other Republicans, he is a rhinocrat.

01:10:30.000 We need people like Charlie who never backed down or compromised their Christian principles.

01:10:34.000 Well, it's interesting.

01:10:35.000 Speaker Johnson has already said he's not going to run for leadership.

01:10:37.000 Looks like Jim Jordan, Steve Scalise are going to be the new guys running.

01:10:42.000 For leadership.

01:10:43.000 You know, there's a lot of critics for both those guys.

01:10:46.000 But I think Jim Jordan, as somebody who's long been a friend, he's got some criticisms that he's too buddy buddy with tech and Google and things like that.

01:10:54.000 I think Jim Jordan's a good guy.

01:10:56.000 So it'll be interesting to see who emerges in that fight.

01:10:59.000 But yeah, Thune.

01:11:00.000 I think Thune is planning to reapply to be leader.

01:11:04.000 Well, he's got a diminished caucus, to say the least.

01:11:08.000 We're getting to your emails here, your reaction to last night.

01:11:11.000 But I want to talk about two things really quickly.

01:11:13.000 One, President Trump, I believe, was talking to Hannity.

01:11:16.000 It could have been Brett Baer.

01:11:17.000 We'll see you in the clip.

01:11:17.000 I'm not sure.

01:11:18.000 But he's talking about how he's.

01:11:20.000 Open to making a deal with Democrats on immigration.

01:11:22.000 I want to address this really quick.

01:11:24.000 Stop 48.

01:11:25.000 Really not in control because they can send over, you know, 50 different great bills that they're all excited about, and I send them back with a nice stamp veto.

01:11:35.000 And, you know, there's not a thing they can do about that.

01:11:39.000 And I hope not to have to do that.

01:11:41.000 I'm, you know, I'm a person that likes getting things done, but I can work with them on a lot of things.

01:11:46.000 I mean, we can work with them on immigration, I think.

01:11:49.000 Immigration is a big deal.

01:11:50.000 I've always felt we should be able to work on immigration.

01:11:53.000 All right.

01:11:54.000 So, an immigration deal with this composition in the House and the Senate would be a disaster for Republicans unless they're willing to really make a concession.

01:12:03.000 Listen, in good faith, I'll wait to see whatever they put forward.

01:12:07.000 But there can be no amnesty.

01:12:09.000 There can be no amnesty.

01:12:12.000 And anything that does not secure and seal the border, dead on arrival.

01:12:17.000 Okay.

01:12:18.000 That, I mean, by the way, legal immigration should be way curtailed.

01:12:24.000 Those are the things that conservatives would do.

01:12:27.000 At least we thought they would do.

01:12:29.000 They failed to deliver on it.

01:12:30.000 But this is a huge, huge deal.

01:12:33.000 If you could open Pandora's box to some really, really scary stuff here.

01:12:38.000 Now, the upshot is that if he does a decent deal or a good ish deal with Democrats, I have no hope that they would do that.

01:12:45.000 It won't happen.

01:12:46.000 I don't even know what to do.

01:12:47.000 Then maybe you could tie their hands in the future.

01:12:49.000 It's something to think about.

01:12:51.000 Listen, I think Mr. Vito, he.

01:12:53.000 Truthed out a veto hat, a hat with the word veto on it.

01:12:57.000 I think that's probably the best policy.

01:12:59.000 Don't let these maniacs screw up our immigration policies because look at what we've been able to do with the policies on the books.

01:13:06.000 Guaranteed that the rules that are on the books are more sane than what they're going to come up with.

01:13:09.000 All right.

01:13:10.000 Other thing here's a quick clip.

01:13:12.000 President Trump sort of acknowledges Iran.

01:13:15.000 It's defiant, but it's in there.

01:13:16.000 SOP 47.

01:13:18.000 The people under him were fantastic.

01:13:21.000 All good people.

01:13:23.000 I guess right now you have two candidates, right?

01:13:24.000 Did you ask this before?

01:13:28.000 No, no, no.

01:13:28.000 Yeah.

01:13:28.000 Mr. President, Vice President Bant says the reason Republicans lost the war last night was the war in Iran.

01:13:36.000 Well, I think it's largely true because it drove the gasoline up a little bit short term, and probably that's probably it's true.

01:13:44.000 But at the same time, if I had it to do again, I'd have to do it again because long term, it's the only answer.

01:13:50.000 You can't let Iran have a nuclear war.

01:13:51.000 So you feel like it was worth it to do it again?

01:13:53.000 I do, yeah.

01:13:54.000 Well, you have no choice.

01:13:55.000 I mean, I thought the oil would go up a lot more, and I did it on that basis.

01:13:58.000 You have no choice.

01:13:59.000 You have to do it.

01:14:00.000 You can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon or everything that you see here someday might not exist.

01:14:07.000 I think that's Trump being defiant.

01:14:09.000 That's a defiant, but at least he acknowledged JD Vance's tweet.

01:14:14.000 And it wasn't like, well, JD's wrong or I disagree with JD.

01:14:18.000 JD should stop talking.

01:14:20.000 None of that.

01:14:21.000 It was said, I think that's mostly true.

01:14:23.000 And then he said, I would have made the same decision all over again, which is very Trump.

01:14:26.000 That's very Trump.

01:14:27.000 Yeah.

01:14:28.000 So I actually look at that as a positive.

01:14:28.000 All right.

01:14:30.000 More emails, more emails.

01:14:31.000 John says the Democrats will actively sabotage the economy to have a 2028 club to beat on the Republicans.

01:14:38.000 Democrats would settle for scorched earth to rule over the ashes.

01:14:42.000 That's something to definitely watch for.

01:14:43.000 Will definitely need to be on point with messaging to oppose that because we already know Democrats do that because they wreck the states that they occupy.

01:14:51.000 And then they flee like locusts.

01:14:53.000 And then they flee like locusts.

01:14:55.000 They are happy to rule disaster states.

01:14:57.000 Sandra says We voted for mass deportations and didn't get them.

01:15:01.000 We voted against endless wars and here they are.

01:15:03.000 We voted for accountability and have seen zero arrests.

01:15:05.000 We voted for the release of the Epstein files, still no accountability.

01:15:08.000 There's a mixture of real things and untrue things.

01:15:11.000 And that speaks to why I think we're pretty frustrated with this, Andrew.

01:15:15.000 Like, We actually did get the largest wave of deportations we've seen in our lifetimes.

01:15:22.000 And there's a lot of people out there who decided to present that as we were lied to.

01:15:26.000 We didn't get deportations.

01:15:27.000 When we got a massive scale up of ICE, instant securing of the border, record deportation, just I find it frustrating.

01:15:35.000 That said, totally acknowledge the real anger over Iran, which is totally legitimate.

01:15:40.000 The anger over the handling of Epstein, if nothing else.

01:15:42.000 Yeah.

01:15:43.000 And here's the deal when it comes to mass deportations, I think you got more than you think you got.

01:15:49.000 And I think you underestimate.

01:15:51.000 How hard it is to institute a deportation force.

01:15:54.000 That was the one big beautiful bill.

01:15:56.000 It gave funding to hire more ICE agents.

01:15:58.000 We've got 3,000 more that are coming online in the pipeline right now.

01:16:01.000 But what I would say could have and probably should have been added to the mix.

01:16:06.000 And I think Trump was reticent to do it because he didn't want to attack businesses and hurt businesses, which there could have been some smart politics there.

01:16:14.000 But you could have done an aggressive approach going after employers.

01:16:21.000 That's the obvious vector if you go after employers.

01:16:24.000 Trump didn't like the idea.

01:16:25.000 He repeatedly said he didn't want to go after employers.

01:16:28.000 He didn't want to target businesses, especially farms that use large amounts of illegal labor.

01:16:33.000 But that's kind of incomprehensible with what the base wants.

01:16:37.000 The base wants them gone.

01:16:39.000 So instead of charging a few dozen businesses with fines, you could have arrested people.

01:16:46.000 And that would have sent a signal to the rest of the economy that we're coming after you now.

01:16:51.000 You did this shock and awe street stuff, right?

01:16:53.000 Which ended up becoming a political cudgel for the left, right?

01:16:56.000 I think you had ice scaring people in cities that allowed people who, you know, you could say people who panic a little bit to freak out more.

01:17:04.000 And if instead it was a few high profile arrests, just say this guy, he's running an all illegal shop to harvest strawberries in California, or he uses immigrants as scab labor to displace Americans.

01:17:18.000 Like we've had that in, you could have that in the Midwest.

01:17:21.000 And the thing is, you'd only need a few of those arrests to really send a big message.

01:17:27.000 Business leaders, they would react to that sort of thing.

01:17:29.000 They might freak out.

01:17:30.000 They might panic.

01:17:31.000 And then you'd get to position yourself.

01:17:33.000 Wow, Trump is defying the big corporations that have enriched themselves on this illegal labor.

01:17:39.000 Totally different dynamic.

01:17:40.000 It would have just walled off the economy from illegals, right?

01:17:40.000 Totally different dynamic.

01:17:44.000 Bank accounts, benefits.

01:17:47.000 That would have been a real mass self deportation agenda.

01:17:50.000 And maybe in the aftermath of last night, we can start instituting some of those wider, more far reaching things because guess what?

01:17:57.000 We got a lot of work still to do on that front to undo what Biden did in his four short years that felt like an eternity.

01:18:05.000 Let's see if we can get one more in.

01:18:06.000 Oh, yeah, of course.

01:18:07.000 Already, we've got I'm a half glass full type of person.

01:18:10.000 This is Don.

01:18:11.000 My take is that the Dems will overstep in a huge way just as the tsunami lands.

01:18:17.000 They will try to impeach too many Republicans.

01:18:19.000 They'll reveal how ridiculous and petty that they are.

01:18:23.000 But Trump, he did disappoint.

01:18:25.000 I think he underestimated the difficulty of the tasks at hand.

01:18:28.000 Love you guys.

01:18:29.000 God bless.

01:18:30.000 Thank you.

01:18:31.000 We have Don says people voted with their wallets in spite of the fact the economy is better than two years ago.

01:18:37.000 The sheeple won.

01:18:38.000 That's one way of putting it.

01:18:40.000 There's some truth to that.

01:18:41.000 No, there's a lot of economic illiteracy out there.

01:18:43.000 People don't really understand certain levers that move the economy.

01:18:49.000 And we have Marty says stop talking about our losses.

01:18:53.000 We use paper ballots.

01:18:54.000 The machines weren't secure.

01:18:55.000 Democrats cheat.

01:18:57.000 I want to say, do Democrats do shady stuff?

01:18:59.000 Yeah, in Alaska, we might get a Democrat senator because of shady stuff.

01:19:02.000 But this level of defeat in the states that it happened in, it is not explained by fraud.

01:19:07.000 Let me tell you, the White House itself was looking at a D 13, D 15.

01:19:13.000 Electorate.

01:19:13.000 They saw it in the pulse, and that's what we saw come out last night.

01:19:18.000 We'll continue this tomorrow.

01:19:20.000 God bless you all.

01:19:21.000 Onward.

01:19:27.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.

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The Charlie Kirk Show - November 04, 2026

2026: The Aftermath

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